song; he seemed, moreover, almost idiotic. At last
Monsieur Homais opened his purse--

"Now there's a sou; give me back two lairds, and don't forget my advice:
you'll be the better for it."

Hivert openly cast some doubt on the efficacy of it. But the druggist
said that he would cure himself with an antiphlogistic pomade of his own
composition, and he gave his address--"Monsieur Homais, near the market,
pretty well known."

"Now," said Hivert, "for all this trouble you'll give us your
performance."

The blind man sank down on his haunches, with his head thrown back,
whilst he rolled his greenish eyes, lolled out his tongue, and rubbed
his stomach with both hands as he uttered a kind of hollow yell like a
famished dog. Emma, filled with disgust, threw him over her shoulder
a five-franc piece. It was all her fortune. It seemed to her very fine
thus to throw it away.

The coach had gone on again when suddenly Monsieur Homais leant out
through the window, crying--

"No farinaceous or milk food, wear wool next the skin, and expose the
diseased parts to the smoke of juniper berries."

The sight of the well-known objects that defiled before her eyes
gradually diverted Emma from her present trouble. An intolerable fatigue
overwhelmed her, and she reached her home stupefied, discouraged, almost
asleep.

"Come what may come!" she said to herself. "And then, who knows? Why, at
any moment could not some extraordinary event occur? Lheureux even might
die!"

At nine o'clock in the morning she was awakened by the sound of voices
in the Place. There was a crowd round the market reading a large bill
fixed to one of the posts, and she saw Justin, who was climbing on to
a stone and tearing down the bill. But at this moment the rural guard
seized him by the collar. Monsieur Homais came out of his shop, and Mere
Lefrangois, in the midst of the crowd, seemed to be perorating.

"Madame! madame!" cried Felicite, running in, "it's abominable!"

And the poor girl, deeply moved, handed her a yellow paper that she had
just torn off the door. Emma read with a glance that all her furniture
was for sale.

Then they looked at one another silently. The servant and mistress had
no secret one from the other. At last Felicite sighed--

"If I were you, madame, I should go to Monsieur Guillaumin."

"Do you think--"

And this question meant to say--

"You who know the house through the servant, has the master spoken
sometimes of me?"